This article was first published by Stuff.
A man who owes his local council $165,000 in unpaid rates has lost a legal battle in which he claimed his property was exempt.
Waikato District Council took Rewi Gregory to court in 2022 after he failed to pay an outstanding rates bill of $64,108 for his property on River Rd, Ngāruawāhia. The council was successful and Gregory was ordered to pay the rates plus costs of $1,810.
Since then, Gregory had not made any payment and his rates arrears bill continued to grow.
Gregory objected to paying rates because he claimed his property had been misclassified as freehold general land and should have been classified as Māori customary land, which would mean it was exempt from rates.
He said the land was gifted to him in 2007 in accordance with tikanga Māori and the land had always been held for cultural purposes as a base for carving waka and for social and cultural events, including for the Māori royal family.
Late last year Gregory filed an application to stay the court’s decision, or have it put aside.
District Court Judge Arthur Tompkins declined Gregory’s application saying “there was no substantive basis for the application”.
Gregory was unhappy with that and filed an application to the High Court for a judicial review of Tompkins’ decision.
The matter was heard by Justice Dani Gardiner last month.
The council told Justice Gardiner there was no evidence to support Gregory’s assertion that the land was Māori customary land or Māori freehold land under the Te Ture Whenua Māori Act.
Council records showed that the property was part of a survey plan for subdivision allotments in 1913 and it went through two owners before it was transferred to Te Puea Hērangi on an indecipherable date, some time after 1935. It was transferred from William Morunga to Gregory in August 2007.
Gregory said the records were correct, but did not recognise the land’s customary title prior to 1913 and he said there was no legitimate conversion from customary title to Crown title, meaning the transactions were invalid.
The council said Gregory failed to put forward these arguments in defence to the rates proceedings earlier, and there were no grounds for staying the decision or setting it aside.
Justice Gardiner noted that Gregory had “waited way too long” to make his application for a stay, and the material he had provided in support of his application did not address the issue of whether there had been a miscarriage of justice.
She said Tompkins’ decision had not been unlawful on the basis he had failed to consider whether the property was Māori customary land because there was no evidence in any supporting material to show that it was customary land.
“There is no evidence at all to support the assertion that the land is Māori customary land,” Gardiner said.
She said all land was rateable unless the Rating Act provided otherwise. Exceptions to this included Māori customary land, land used for marae, Māori freehold land on which a meeting house was erected, a Māori reservation under the Te Ture Whenua Māori Act, and any Māori freehold land deemed non-rateable by virtue of a council order.
None of those exceptions applied to Gregory’s property.
Justice Gardiner noted that if Gregory could prove his property was Māori customary land, he could apply to the Māori Land Court for a determination.
In the meantime, however, the land was classified as freehold, and the council was entitled to rely on certificates of title, and Gregory was obliged to pay rates on the property, she said.
Gregory’s debt to the council as at the date of her decision, April 10, was $165,251.54.
By Marty Sharpe of Stuff.
